Using archival footage, news clips, and original photographs and videos by cinematographer Artem Ryzhykov (including handheld undercover material secretly shot with GoPro cameras), The Russian Woodpecker takes us through the… more

Indigenous activists take on Northern Hemisphere’s biggest telescope

The Big Island of Hawaii is often in the news because of the active Kilauea volcano. However, an eruption of another sort at the dormant 13,796 foot-high Mauna Kea is thrusting Hawaii back into the headlines. This explosion of activism has been triggered not by TNT, but by “TMT,” the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope, the Northern Hemisphere’s largest, most advanced optical telescope, which is slated to be built on the summit of the Aloha State’s highest peak. This 184 foot-tall, 18 story-high, eight acre, $1.4 billion construction project has sparked a wave of occupations and protests by Native Hawaiians, environmentalists, and their allies, stretching from Hawaii to California.

A beautifully filmed journey to the bottom of the globe reveals new risks to the planet

There’s an old saying: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Well, here’s a film about a few people who are doing something about extreme weather. Every spring (in the Southern Hemisphere) oceanographers and ecologists of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project make the arduous journey to Palmer Station in the West Antarctic Peninsula. The area has been described as “the fastest winter-warming place on Earth,” and because of that unfortunate distinction it is among the best places on the planet to study the impacts of global climate change.

Toll expected to rise; top officials blame climate change

In a 4:00 p.m. EST, phone interview from Manhattan on Monday, Vanuatu’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Odo Tevi, updated Earth Island Journal as to the latest news regarding the cyclone that ravaged his South Pacific Island nation over the weekend: “We were hit by a Category 5 cyclone, Cyclone Pam… Currently, there are 24 confirmed deaths. Eleven are from Tafea province, eight from Efate [the main island where the capital of Port Vila is located], five from Tanna… Tafea province has about four islands.”

Photo courtesy of UNICEFThe full scale of the damage wreaked by the storm is still unclear… more